"What was it that you saw that had such a profound, life altering affect on you?"

Any single phrase or explanation will be insufficient, so let's play around with words and see if we can come up with something. However, don't take this too literally.

In the beginning, as some have said, whatever the Universe was, was held together by 4 forces; the electromagnetic, the strong nuclear, the weak nuclear, and gravity. The Universe was an infinitely tiny ball, and those four forces were like chains, holding it all in place (that might be overly simplistic, but it works for our purposes here). Now, for some reason still unknown to us, those chains holding together the tiny ball of universe broke, and the universe exploded outward.

Now let's imagine the self, the ego, CONSCIOUSNESS, or whatever you want to call it, is the Universe before the Big Bang. It is a very tiny ball, a very limited position, held together by certain forces. Let's say the forces holding it together are experience, knowledge, conditioning, emotion, or whatever (it is not meant as a definitive list).

As 'persons' or 'individuals' with agendas - as the tiny ball - we experience the world as us and them, you and me, me/my/mine, and so on. (It is not good or bad or anything, but that position is always limited by the viewpoint of the person experiencing.)

For whatever reason, on December 1st, 2006, those chains that held the self together; the experience-er, the viewpoint, and so on; broke, and consciousness exploded outward like the Universe. I don't know why it happened, but that is not really important.

There was no specific event as the cause. Sitting here now I can see no reason for it. It is just something that happened. But one thing is most likely certain; if the forces holding YOU together suddenly break, there is no way of ever going back...

It is a decent analogy I suppose, but as a concept it is flawed, as is every concept. But we are just playing with words here, and it shouldn't be taken as a solid, definable state that can be hunted for and killed for one's own continuity.

"If you can't follow The Change back to a single motivator, what motivates you to continue walking your current path?"

There is no path, in the way we are speaking. It is not the same as making a plan in the physical world, where we might have a goal of some kind to do or accomplish something. That is all the physical, and we need an expression of the physical to accomplish it, whatever the goal might be. For example, if you want to be a good musician, there is physical doing involved in order to achieve that goal.

But what we are talking about is a realization beyond the physical. It is not dependent upon activity (although many people would try to convince you it is), and not dependent upon what came before, in the sense of accumulating and using knowledge. In other words, it is not a matter of 'knowing' my place, then following a path or a plan that suits the image I have created.

You can only see the path in hindsight. You can analyze your own actions, your own history, then decide it was this path or that path, but when we are talking about life as it is lived in each moment, there is no path, no plan, and no destination.